Auschwitz: A History

Auschwitz: A History by Sybille Steinbacher

Paperback, 167 pages

Published 15th August 2006 by Harper Perennial

Shelves: better-than-expected, books-i-own, historical, non-fiction, read, read-in-2020, ww2

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Description via Goodreads:

At the terrible heart of the modern age lies Auschwitz, a name that has become synonymous with evil. Here the utopian twentieth-century dream of employing science and technology to improve and protect human life was inverted from the latter part of the 1930s through the end of the Second World War, as the same systems were manipulated in the cause of efficient mass slaughter. Historian Sybille Steinbacher's powerful and eminently important book details Auschwitz's birth, growth, and horrible mutation into a dreadful city. How it came to be and how what followed was allowed to occur is a story that everyone needs to understand and remember.

As someone who is very interested in the Holocaust, especially Auschwitz, I  am willing to pick up any book that I can about the subject. At only 167 pages long, I didn't expect much from this short book but I can confidently say that I was positively surprised by this book - it has incredible substance for such a short work. 

I have both studied and visited Auschwitz- Birkenau and this really brought everything back to the forefront of my mind. Reading through the book was like taking another walk through the now museum and I imagine that it will be able to transport any reader there with its accurate descriptions. I was pleasantly surprised that this book didn't only focus on the concentration camp but also the town around it and helped us to learn how it was established, something which is often overlooked in books about Auschwitz. I was particularly interested in the insights into the people on the outside of the camp - those living in the surrounding areas who apparently knew what was happening inside and reacted in several different ways.

Despite the book being concise, it feels like Steinbacher doesn't leave much out in this book - teaching us fact after fact about the camp and the events surrounding it. I think that there is a lot to learn from this book and it would be of great benefit for almost anyone to read. It would especially be helpful for those who need an introduction to the Holocaust or to Auschwitz. It certainly made me consider things I haven't thought of before and it also taught me some new information that I wasn't aware of. This is a  book that I will definitely be recommending to others.